As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday, 22 November 2015

From starving chicks come fat birds

A
poor start in life creates differences in eating behavior modeled in starlings

Date: November 6, 2015

Source: Newcastle University

A
Newcastle University study has shown that baby birds that have a difficult
start in life grow to be fatter and greedier than their more fortunate
siblings.

The
researchers, led by Professor Melissa Bateson and Dr Clare Andrews, discovered
that stress and difficulties as a chick made a long lasting impression on a
starling's relationship with food.

The
study, published in the journal Animal Behaviour and funded by the
BBSRC, showed that the smallest chicks in European starling families changed
their adult feeding behaviour, resulting in a fatter body composition in the
fully developed birds.

Dr
Andrews, of the Newcastle University Centre for Behaviour and Evolution said:
"Building up body fat reserves as a safeguard against times of potential
future famine is an evolved survival mechanism. What we have shown is that
birds that had struggled against larger brothers or sisters for food early on
were keener on finding food and tended to overeat when they became
adults."

"This
study may also teach us something about ourselves as surprisingly, there's
evidence that obesity is common in people lacking a reliable supply of food.
Perhaps people too have evolved to eat more and take more interest in food if
worried where their next meal will come from."